In case anyone is wondering, Kal-El is Superman's Kryptonian name.
Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El demos next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (w/ video)
11–20 of 53 posts
Re: Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El demos next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (w/ video)
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
He means on the iPhone and iPad. Nvidia acquired PortalPlayer which was the chip used in the iPods, but Apple decided not to use them anymore and developed their own chip. Meanwhile PortalPlayer chips eventually became Tegra. Also due to a lawsuit that was recently settled with Intel, Nvidia was unable to provide Nehalem chipsets to Apple, meaning that Apple ended up shipping Nvidia's Core 2 Duo chipset, but that won…
Or Sandy bridge and a compatible graphics card.
Thats the bet nvidia made when they lost the chipset business. I'd say they are more interested in their own CPU specially now that Win8 is compatible with it.
Re: Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El demos next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (w/ video)
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean? They still use Nvidia chips on Macbook and Macbook Air.
He means on the iPhone and iPad. Nvidia acquired PortalPlayer which was the chip used in the iPods, but Apple decided not to use them anymore and developed their own chip. Meanwhile PortalPlayer chips eventually became Tegra. Also due to a lawsuit that was recently settled with Intel, Nvidia was unable to provide Nehalem chipsets to Apple, meaning that Apple ended up shipping Nvidia's Core 2 Duo chipset, but that won…
> and developed their own chip.
Apple did not "develop their own chip" in any meaningful sense, especially not in back in 2007 when Nvidia acquired PortalPlayer. The iPhone used an off-the-shelf Samsung part (the S5L8900), and PortalPlayer was in the business of audio SoCs for PMPs. The first generation Tegra was more than two years away at the release of the original iPhone.
Even if Apple had wanted to contract PortalPlayer for iPhone, they could not have.
Since then, they've mostly kept to off-the-shelf blocks, even the A4 only has minor restructuring of the blocks at the SoC level, the GPU is a standard SGX block.
Re: Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El demos next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (w/ video)
#14Why did Apple break up with Nvidia..? Now they have to face the competition.
Physical quality control issues. There was a big problem a while back with Nvidia integrated graphics failing pretty often that apparently had to do with bad potting material material in the chip modules that didn't have the same thermal expansion properties as the solder that Nvidia had switched to. A large number of MacBooks had to be replaced, costing a lot of money and consumer confidence. Google "bumpgate" for more information.
And while Nvidia's Kal-El is really nifty, I'd rather have an OMAP 5 in a mobile device. Four A15s at 40nm will probably drain too much power to get any sort of battery life while playing that demo. 28nm should be much better.
Re: Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El demos next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (w/ video)
#15That means the simulations we're watching require a full quartet of processing cores on top of the 12-core GPU NVIDIA has in Kal-El. Mind-boggling stuff. Mind boggling indeed, but totally absent in the text and demo was any mention of power usage. Four cores running at 75% utilization plus 12 GPU cores is going to suck down a tablet battery in a hurry.
Not (much) more than a Tegra 2 running at 75% utilization. Each Tegra 3 core should run at 50-60% power consumption of each Tegra 2 core, if history is any guide. When every chip maker works on a new ARM chip generation, they try to increase performance while maintaining the same overall power consumption of the whole chip. You won't see an ARM chip with 1W TDP in one year, and 1.5-2W the next year, when the new gene…
History is partly based on moving to moving to new process nodes to allow you to do more stuff with less power. Unfortunately Kal-El will be running on the same 40nm process that current Tegra processors are running on. To the extent that the device can quickly wake up, get stuff done more quickly than a Tegra 2, then go back to sleep it might be more power efficient than last generation, but not with something like this demo.
EDIT: Remember, the previous generation had two A9 cores, and this one has four A9 cores. My vague impression is that the A9s in Tegra 2 really are more power efficient than the A8s in the original Tegra, but we won't see a transition like that in this generation.
Re: Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El demos next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (w/ video)
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or Sandy bridge and a compatible graphics card.
Thats the bet nvidia made when they lost the chipset business. I'd say they are more interested in their own CPU specially now that Win8 is compatible with it.
Sure as you can see they are already quite fast :) It's nice to see a new competitor in the CPU business..
Re: Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El demos next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (w/ video)
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
He means on the iPhone and iPad. Nvidia acquired PortalPlayer which was the chip used in the iPods, but Apple decided not to use them anymore and developed their own chip. Meanwhile PortalPlayer chips eventually became Tegra. Also due to a lawsuit that was recently settled with Intel, Nvidia was unable to provide Nehalem chipsets to Apple, meaning that Apple ended up shipping Nvidia's Core 2 Duo chipset, but that won…
> and developed their own chip. Apple did not "develop their own chip" in any meaningful sense, especially not in back in 2007 when Nvidia acquired PortalPlayer. The iPhone used an off-the-shelf Samsung part (the S5L8900), and PortalPlayer was in the business of audio SoCs for PMPs. The first generation Tegra was more than two years away at the release of the original iPhone. Even if Apple had wanted to contract Port…
If Nvidia is extracting a premium over other ARM vendors it's unlikely any kind of mobile deal with Apple would happen. Not sure they'd be crazy about rebranding their mobile flagship with an Apple logo either.
Re: Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El demos next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (w/ video)
#18That means the simulations we're watching require a full quartet of processing cores on top of the 12-core GPU NVIDIA has in Kal-El. Mind-boggling stuff. Mind boggling indeed, but totally absent in the text and demo was any mention of power usage. Four cores running at 75% utilization plus 12 GPU cores is going to suck down a tablet battery in a hurry.
Not (much) more than a Tegra 2 running at 75% utilization. Each Tegra 3 core should run at 50-60% power consumption of each Tegra 2 core, if history is any guide. When every chip maker works on a new ARM chip generation, they try to increase performance while maintaining the same overall power consumption of the whole chip. You won't see an ARM chip with 1W TDP in one year, and 1.5-2W the next year, when the new gene…
Sorry... must... resist... can't!
Moore's law has nothing to do with speed, only transistor count in the same space. While the speed increases are impressive, they're still picking off the low hanging fruit, as people haven't fully figured out how to optimize for the space yet. Kal-El will reportedly be using 40nm transistors, compared to the 22nm process Intel is able to do.
Which means there's more room for the amazing in the arena. :)
Re: Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El demos next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (w/ video)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and developed their own chip. Apple did not "develop their own chip" in any meaningful sense, especially not in back in 2007 when Nvidia acquired PortalPlayer. The iPhone used an off-the-shelf Samsung part (the S5L8900), and PortalPlayer was in the business of audio SoCs for PMPs. The first generation Tegra was more than two years away at the release of the original iPhone. Even if Apple had wanted to contract Port…
If Nvidia is extracting a premium over other ARM vendors it's unlikely any kind of mobile deal with Apple would happen. Not sure they'd be crazy about rebranding their mobile flagship with an Apple logo either.
> If Nvidia is extracting a premium over other ARM vendors it's unlikely any kind of mobile deal with Apple would happen.
Not really.
> Not sure they'd be crazy about rebranding their mobile flagship with an Apple logo either.
Why would they have to rebrand anything? The iPhone and 3G SoCs were not branded, and the 3GS only had minor branding (an Apple logo on the top 20%). The A4 was the first iPhone SoC with truly significant rebranding.
Re: Nvidia's quad-core Kal-El demos next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (w/ video)
#20That name bugs me. Made worse by the fact I just re-read Crisis on Infinite Earths so my mind is full of DC goodness.
Be sure not to use this under a red sun.